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Monday, May 6, 2013

Color Bath Fun!

Monkey has been asking me for weeks for shaving cream paint in the bathtub. I've made paint for him on a number of occasions in the past, but since the arrival of little brother, I've been hesitant to give him shaving cream since they usually bathe together - we love saving water around here!

Anyway, he'd been asking for so long, I thought, why not take it a step further and break out the theme baths we used to do pretty much every night when he went through a 'no bath' phase.

Since he is much older now, he got to pick the color ahead of time and then go on a 'treasure hunt' to find things of that color. I'd assist by weeding out things that weren't bath-worthy and by making the desired color of shaving cream paint (which is just shaving cream and liquid watercolor or food coloring).

Of course, what color does he choose on the first day?? PINK!! Ack! How in the world is he going to find enough pink stuff to fill a bathtub??

I'm one of those Moms who believes colors are for everyone and while I'm not opposed to pink toys, most of our toys are wooden and the few non-wooden toys we do have are generally primary colors or green, which, for some reason is always lumped in with the primaries in the world of toys.

So, I sent him off with his little collection bag and he had a blast wandering around looking for pink stuff. We had to raid the spring sensory bin stuff, which hadn't been put away yet, but he managed to cobble together quite an impressive collection.

And because I'm still a bit paranoid about Bear and the fact that he puts everything into his mouth, he got his own mini pink bath.

"Mom, can I put the flower in the paint?" Sure!!

"Look! I'm cracking eggs, see the yolk in there?" The best part about this exploration is that the following day, he requested waffles for lunch and then asked, "Do we need eggs to make waffles?" Yup! "Can I crack them?" Yup! He's always refused to help with the eggs when we cook. Maybe it's the addition of our chickens or maybe it's added confidence from a bath time practice session.

Monkey's second color choice this week was ORANGE! Yet another color we don't have much of in our house, however, we were headed out to the Dollar Tree that day and I kept a lookout for things we could use.

I found a bunch of foam shapes and foam sheets that I cut into strips to make letters or pictures and some neat glow necklaces so he could take a bath in the dark. We added all of that to the foam numbers and letters we already had and some more shaving cream paint and he was off!

Ok, I know you're wondering about that lobster, aren't you? That, my friends, is an interesting tale. A long while back, when we first started shopping at Trader Joe's, that lobster lived on a tree in the center of the peanut butter aisle. Monkey was always asking me about what it was and why it lived on that tree - ummmmm, no idea???

One week, we went to TJ's and the lobster was gone - Monkey was distraught, he wanted to know where the lobster had gone. I told him that if he wanted to know, he was going to have to ask someone who worked there. At this point, he had yet to develop his compulsion to talk to every single person he sees and was a bit nervous to ask, so it took a few weeks to build up the courage.

Finally, after nearly a month of wondering where the lobster had gone, he asked the girl checking us out. As the checkout girl was trying to explain that the lobster wasn't feeling well and had fallen down and that maybe someday he might be back on the tree, one of the managers overheard the discussion and said, "Hold on, I'll show you." Before I knew what was happening, she came back with that lobster (which looks much smaller when it's hanging on a tree), handed it to Monkey and said, "He can go home with you, you can take baths together."

Well, Mr. Literal took that lobster home and has taken baths with him ever since. I keep asking when we might return Lobster to his home at TJ's, but Monkey tends to ignore that line of questioning, so I guess he's here to stay.
Bear didn't get a lobster in his baby orange glow bath, but he does
have his little Sophie the Giraffe in there, so we included the wildlife all around!

Monkey's last choice this week was red - of course, because I'd already used most of the red food coloring for the pink and orange baths! So our red bath was more pink that the pink bath was, but everyone had a grand old time anyway!

The best part about red is that we could add all of Monkey's red Legos, which are always a hit in the tub! I wasn't able to get too many pictures, but he was in his red bath until it was cold because he built a machine with those Legos and had an elaborate scene going on for quite sometime.

He also managed to find time for some cooking since we added our strainer and a plastic spice jar from our outdoor classroom.

And of course, no color bath would be complete without the shaving cream paint!

I'm really hoping for some green, blue and yellow this week, but we'll see!